"Have faith that people will give same mandate": Gopal Rai after AAP nominates him again from Babarpur
Dec 15, 2024
New Delhi [India], December 15 : Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Gopal Rai on Sunday welcomed the party's decision to nominate him again from Babarpur for the upcoming Delhi Assembly polls, expressing confidence that the people of the constituency would give him the same mandate as last time.
"I thank the party for nominating me again from Babarpur. I have faith that the people of Babarpur will give me the same mandate as last time... Last time, we replaced 22 candidates; this time, the number is much lower," he said.
His statement came after the AAP released its fourth and final list of 38 candidates for the Delhi Assembly Elections 2025.
As per the list, the party's national convenor and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will contest from New Delhi, Chief Minister Atishi from Kalkaji, Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj from Greater Kailash, and Minister Gopal Rai from Babarpur.
Additionally, Satyendra Kumar Jain will contest from Shakur Basti, Durgesh Pathak from Rajinder Nagar, Ramesh Pehalwan from Kasturba Nagar, Raghuvinder Shokeen from Nangloi Jat, Som Dutt from Sadar Bazar, Imran Hussain from Ballimaran, and Jarnail Singh from Tilak Nagar.
The list includes two new names, while the remaining 36 candidates are sitting MLAs who have been re-nominated.
AAP has fielded Ramesh Pehalwan from Kasturba Nagar, and Naresh Balyan's wife, Pooja Naresh Balyan, has been fielded from Uttam Nagar.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ramesh Pehalwan and his wife Kusumlata Ramesh joined the Aam Aadmi Party on Sunday. The couple was welcomed into the party by Arvind Kejriwal.
On Friday, AAP released its third list of candidates for the Delhi Assembly Elections 2025, which included Tarun Yadav, who will contest from Delhi's Najafgarh constituency.
Earlier, on December 9, the party released its second list, in which it dropped 17 sitting MLAs, replacing them with new faces. However, three familiar names--Manish Sisodia, Rakhi Birla, and Deepu Chaudhary--were re-nominated. Deepu Chaudhary had contested unsuccessfully in the previous election.
Congress, which ruled Delhi for 15 consecutive years, has struggled in the last two assembly elections, failing to win a single seat.
In the 2020 assembly elections, AAP secured 62 out of 70 seats, while the BJP won eight.
